An advance contingent of Wakefield MAG travelled to the Yorkie Pud site on the Thursday evening as they had early Friday morning marshalling shifts. They met our Lincolnshire Splitters Corinne and Igor there and pitched in a fantastic spot right next to the main gate (very convenient for marshalling), in what was to become a wakefield MAG village !! By all accounts there was very sensible and responsible consumption of alcoholic bevereges and all tucked up in bed by 10pm.
The rest of our contingent arrived at various stages throughout Friday.
By 8pm, everyone had finished their shifts and were ready to PARTY !!! The bands on Friday evening didn't seem that good, and were headlined by an Ozzy Osbourne tribute band, who seemed to play a lot of fairly obscure tracks that unless you were a die hard Ozzy fan, you hadn't heard of. But, to be fair, it's just a bit of background noise at that point and you are looking at the world through a speeded up and giggly alcoholic haze. Friday evening the heavens opened and the main marquee was packed .... it was also still hot so it was like being in a bike rally in Singapore it was that humid.
Saturday, those who weren't marshalling, wandered into Eskrick Village where they found a Social Club, and lots of other rally goers, and much merriment was had by all.
Food was ordered and a poor unsupecting elderly lady club steward ended up delivering food to the likes of Mike Hunt and Phil McAvities et al ... cue raptuous laughter and a blushing club steward !!!!
Back on site, the bike show was marshalled by Wakefield MAG and despite there being only 32 bikes in the show, the standard was exceptional. Back Street Heroes Magazine provided the judges and the winners were:
The bikes are always started up and ridden to get their awards (so no non-runners are ever entered into Yorkshire MAG Rally bike shows) .... there was a race on between the owners of the Bantam and KH 750 to kick start their respective bikes first .... the Bantam won !!! Classic conversation between Dave Manning of BSH Magazine and the young lad with the Pioneer Torro 125 (on L plates) .... "How long did it take ?" (meaning the engineering work) ..... "five days" .... "No, I didn't mean how long it took you to get here." The young lad got a kiss from his girlfriend when he won. When the owner of the KH750 won, all his mates ran over to give him a kiss, and because he had to keep his hand on the throttle to stop it stalling, he had no means of fighting them off .... cue raptuous laughter to rival the comedy show !!
Saturday evening was a more sedate affair as most of us had peaked too early, but it wasn't raining and it was very pleasant stood outside the marquee listening to the bands inside and chewing the fat with old (and new) friends.
DeSilva were the last band on, and played a great selection of modern rock tracks from the likes of Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Steroephonics etc .... they sounded good from our tents ... where most of us were by that stage of the evening (can't take the pace anymore).
Sunday morning arrived all too soon but we weren't in a rush, so wandered to the Eskrick Social Club to enjoy bacon butties for breakfast, for two quid a shot (bargain). We then strolled back to site, packed up and started drifting away from the site from lunchtime onwards.
All in all a fantastic weekend. Some of the best bits were actually just sitting around the tents laughing, joking and being particularly crude and politically uncorrect (a Wakefield MAG speciality).
To quote Corinne ... "Love it when the old gang are all together"
Last but not least a massive THANK YOU to MAP (the organisers), the volunteer marshals (incl. all those lovely Wakefield MAG marshals who gave sterling service over the weekend), everyone involved and of course the punters, because without any of these it just wouldn't have happened.